Improved process for removing burrs from wool



UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

JAMES FULLEN, OF SAXONVILLE, MASSACHUSETTS.

IMPROVED PROCESS FOR REMOVING BURRS FROM WOOL.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 40,832, dated December 8, 1863.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, JAMES FULLEN, a resident of Saxonville, in the county of Middlesex and State of Massachusetts, have made a new and useful invention having reference to the treatment of wool for the removal of burrs therefrom; and I do hereby declare the same to be fully described in the following specificanon.

It is customary to import into the United States from South America and other countries wool with which burrs and various other vegetable substances have become more or less mixed or entangled. It is the purpose of my invention to separate from the wool these burrs and vegetable matters, which has usually been accomplished by machinery termed wool-burring machines, they causing not only more or less injury to the staple of the wool, but much loss of wool, in consequence of much of it being removed with or adhering to the burrs. In the treatment ofthe wool by my invention there results little or no loss of it, as the burr is destroyed within and removed from the wool without carrying with it any considerable amount of the fibrous material.

In carrying out my invention I first steep for about ten or fifteen minutes the wool having the burrs on it in a solution of sulphuric acid in the proportions of one measure of the acid to eight measures of water; next, remove the wool from the solution and suffer the wool to dry or otherwise treat it so as to dry it; next, subject the wool to the actionof a common wool-picker by running it through the same while the picker may bein operationand so as to pick the wool and separate the burrs therefrom. This having been done, the wool separated from the burrs is to be immersed for about twenty minutes (more or less) in a compound solution of soda-ash and Irish moss, or their equivalents, the proportions of moss and soda-ash to forty gallons of-water being twenty pounds of the soda-ash and two pounds of the moss. After this the wool may be removed from the solution and be washed, provided it is to be colored; but in case it is to be carded white only it should be first dried. I use the compound solution, as more economical than to immerse the wool in separate solutionsviz., one of soda-ash and another of the Irish moss. My inventiomhowever, is intended to comprise the employment of either the soda-ash or moss in separate solutions or in a compound solution of them. The causticaeid solution so effects. the burrs as to notonly render them brittle and easily broken up by the picker, but destroys or materially lessens their hold of the wool. The alkaline solution operates to neutralize the acid, but leaves the wool in a peculiar state, which is removed by the solution of moss.

I am aware that it is not new to subject wool charged with burrs to an acid solution and subsequently submit it to an alkalinesolution, the burrs being either afterward or in the meantime removed by beating or shaking the mass. Therefore I do not claim such as my invention. I have combined with the process of the treatment of the woolby acids, alkalies, and a picker, as set forth, the employment or use of Irish moss in the manner specified, this material serving a very beneficial purpose and renderingthewoolin a much better and more natural state, and capable of receiving oil and of being worked to better advantage than after having been subjected to the acid and alkaline solutions only.

Having thus described my invention or improvement, what I claim, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-

The treatment of the wool, as described viz., by applying to it, in connection with the treatment of it by an acid solution, a picker, and an alkaline solution, as set forth, a solution of Irish moss or its equivalent, the whole being substantially as specified.

JAMES FULLEN.

Witnesses:

R. H. EDDY, F. P. HALE, J r. 

